Yum Brands (YUM), the parent company of KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is on the offensive: Its Taco Bell chain will be adding 2,000 new domestic locations in the next 10 years. To put that in perspective, there are currently about 6,000 Taco Bell restaurants scattered across America. This means that the chain will...Read More

Now that we’re in the Christmas holiday shopping season, you’re about to get inundated with ridiculous expressions like “Santa Claus rally” and market superstitions that would have you believe that the price action on the first trading day of the year—January 2—will determine the returns on the market for all of 2014. It’s hard to...Read More

I joined Varney & Co. on Fox Business this morning to discuss the future of JCPenney (JCP) and JCP stock. Watch the latest video at video.foxbusiness.com JCPenney is having a rough go at it today, with JCP stock down more than 9% as of the time of this writing. The impetus for today’s thrashing appears to be the news...Read More

2013 was a great year for stock investors. And despite some minor corrections in 2014, the S&P 500 has held on to the majority of those gains. Of course, it’s taken us a long time to get here. The S&P 500 finished 2012 at 1,426, a level it first saw in 1999. To give a...Read More

This time of year, it’s easy to get wrapped up in the holidays and push unpleasant things like tax planning into January, but believe me — a few tax tips will actually come in handy sooner than later. For some tax decisions — such as how much to contribute to an IRA or Roth IRA...Read More